


Two Have A Ripping Adventure

by derryderrydown



Category: British Comedian RPF
Genre: Accidental Sex, Huddling For Warmth, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-15
Updated: 2011-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derryderrydown/pseuds/derryderrydown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie is adapting the Famous Five for BBC three. There is genuinely accidental sex, homosexuality leading to huddling for warmth, and a cute dog (or three).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Have A Ripping Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> [Imperfectcircle](http://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectcircle) gave this the awesomest beta and is responsible for the best lines.

Charlie was pissed off. Even more pissed off than normal.

It was ten o'clock in the morning and he'd already spent an hour in a meeting where people called Tabitha and Piers and Gus talked about prioritising their audience objectives and the vitality of providing valid role models to Key Stage 3 ABC1s.

"It's not that bloody difficult," he said. "To make a good kids' programme, you make a good _programme_ and cut out the gratuitous sex and gore. Can we get onto my bit of the meeting now, so I can bugger off?"

But Tabitha, Piers and Gus were looking at him as if he were some kind of Mozart-rivalling genius and he wished he'd kept his gob shut.

Long story short, between Piers, Tabitha, Gus and Annabel Jones, he found he was contracted to write the BBC's latest adaptation of the Famous Five.

Fuck.

* * *

"Let's make them all Pakistani," he said.

No, the BBC said.

"Lithuanian."

Still, no.

"Can I make Timmy a ferret?"

The BBC was equally firm on that negative.

"Well, how the hell am I meant to modernise it, then?"

That, the BBC felt, was what a writer was paid to think of.

He was complaining about it at a recording of _Would I Lie To You?_.

"Well," Marcus Brigstocke said, "for a start, you can define what kind of scientist Quentin Kirrin is. That random important-scientist-who-works-from-home bullshit bugged me even as a kid. Make him an environmental research type. That's nice and modern."

"And Aunt Fanny," David Mitchell said, "can be an outspoken feminist writing for the _Guardian_."

"She's not having hairy legs," Charlie said. "Some stereotypes are so old they should have been euthanised when Victoria was on the throne."

But it gave him a place to start and he handed in the pilot script precisely three hours and ten minutes late. Which was quite good going, really.

Of course, the Beeb didn't let him have it all his own way. George was restored to being a tomboy and he was forced to cut out all the stuff - _interesting_ stuff - about being a fourteen-year-old trans man. ("Do you know the figures for transsexuality in teenagers?" he demanded, but apparently even BBC three wasn't 'edgy' enough for that.)

Julian, Dick and Anne weren't allowed to be the adopted rainbow family of two gay movie stars but were returned to being the white, middle-class children of a heterosexual marriage. (" _More_ bloody white, middle-class kids? Because _that's_ such an under-represented group.")

But when he sat down to discuss possible casting with the producer, he hit a snag. Because when he was asked who he saw as Quentin and Fanny, he realised he'd written the roles for Marcus Brigstocke and David Mitchell.

And David would probably kill him.

* * *

As it turned out, he should have been more scared of Marcus.

"I am _not_ taking part in some hideous glorification of empire-building, racist, classist _cunts_ ," he shouted, but was eventually won over by the prospect of an evironmental storyline in the next series.

In comparison, David shrugged and said it sounded quite fun. "As long as she has a brain and isn't a pointless comedy figure."

"She writes a daily column for the _Guardian_ ," Charlie said. "About living a carbon neutral lifestyle."

David looked suspicious.

"Really, _not_ a pointless comedy character. The audience laughs with her, not at her," Charlie said, and made a mental note to strike a few scenes.

* * *

At the next meeting with the producer, he said, "If we're having Aunt Fanny as a man in drag, I think it's even more important that we address George's transsexuality properly. It's really offensive otherwise."

The producer looked torn at that.

"Maybe not being quite as lecturing about it as my first script," Charlie said. "But just _accept_ that he prefers to be referred to as a boy."

The producer made a few notes. "I'll think about it," she said. "Now, about Anne."

"What about Anne?"

"Does she really _need_ to be an explosives expert?"

"Well, it's the modern version of cooking, isn't it?" Charlie said, with a shrug.

* * *

By the time it came to casting the kids, Charlie had got everybody so confused that they had no idea whether they were looking for a boy or a girl to play George.

He considered this a win.

The only problem was, he was going to have to attend the auditions to make sure they _stayed_ confused and didn't end up settling on some adorable stage school moppet who looked about as tomboyish as Barbara Cartland.

"You're coming with me," he told David. "I'm not facing the hordes of Midwich Cuckoos alone."

"Of course, I'm going to be there," David said. "I've got to read with them. So's Marcus."

"Good," Charlie said. "You can fight them off if they start to do that mind-control thing."

"It’s science _fiction_ , Charlie. The ‘fiction’ is the relevant bit."

"Bollocks," Charlie said. "Kids are evil. Well known fact."

* * *

"He's got more facial hair than me!" Charlie objected when the general consensus for Julian settled on Ivan Taylor, a blandly handsome man-child with the cold-dead eyes of either a serial killer or an advertising executive. Charlie was hoping for a serial killer. "You can't have a Julian who's on the verge of graduating university!"

It was pointed out that they _also_ couldn't have a Julian who was guaranteed to hit puberty halfway through filming, resulting in multiple retakes and pickups to allow for a breaking voice. It was also pointed out that a sexy-to-teens Julian would result in free publicity and, with the Beeb's budget, that was an important consideration.

Charlie subsided.

He quite liked their choice for Rick-previously-known-as-Dick, although he wouldn't admit it. Jeffrey Prendergast came in with a black eye and only looked up from his Nintendo DS for long enough to read his lines.

Anne was to be played by the inevitable pretty little stage school brat, Chloe Nixon. Charlie loathed her from the moment he saw her, and he was pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

George was the only one where he got his way. "Him," he said, pointing at the curly-haired boy sitting next to Chloe. "He's perfect for George."

"Fuck you," the kid said. "I'm here for Anne."

Charlie squinted. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm fucking sure!" The kid folded his - her - arms. "God, you're a knob-end."

"Here." Charlie tossed her a script. "Read George."

So Evangeline Cunliffe, a girl whose name more than excused her personality, was cast as George.

* * *

It was the final read-through before filming started, and David and Marcus were glancing through the latest revision of the script.

"Have you seen scene three?" David asked, voice slightly higher-pitched than usual.

"Not yet," Marcus said, and flicked through his script to the appropriate page. He raised his eyebrows. "Charlie. How do you want to die?"

"Not my fault," Charlie said. "Mandated from above that Quentin and Fanny have a sexually active marriage."

"You fought to make George transsexual and Timmy a chihuahua. You didn't fight this?"

Charlie shrugged. "Didn't seem that important. What's a naked kiss between friends? Anyway, I still haven't won completely on the transsexuality and I lost horribly on making Timmy a chihuahua."

(Timmy was actually three separate border collies that, with the aid of dye, had exactly the same markings. Charlie regarded all three with suspicion. Nothing should be so constantly _cheerful_.)

The argument was interrupted by Chloe stalking into the room and dropping her coat on the ground for a runner to pick up. "I'm ready to start," she announced, and surveyed the room down her nose. "Where are Jeffrey and Evangeline? Why aren't they here yet? Do I really have to work with _amateurs?_ "

Charlie made a swift exit before he gave in to the urge to drop kick the brat out the window.

* * *

In an attempt to make the most of all three days of the British summer, they'd ended up doing all the location shoots before the studio. Charlie had even shown willing and come down to Dorset for a few days, although, as the director pointed out, having a writer on set was like having your plumber on your honeymoon.

(Charlie hadn't thought that was particularly clever when David Mamet said it. He thought it got even stupider on repetition. There were probably quite a few wives who would have welcomed the plumber on their honeymoon.)

Right now, he was watching Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin attempt to herd a sheep, while George insisted that Timmy would have been a great help if he hadn't been banished. (Charlie had managed to replace Timmy's fisherman minder with Sunil, the emo son of the local GP, and had congratulated himself on a minor victory.)

"Cut!" the director called, and the sheep instantly calmed down and started stuffing its face. "That's a wrap."

Marcus and David staggered in Charlie's direction. "I'm an urban environmentalist," Marcus complained. "I don't want to have anything to do with animals. They shit everywhere."

David patted him on the shoulder. "Go and wash your hands, dear."

Grumbling, Marcus obeyed.

"You make a surprisingly attractive woman," Charlie observed.

David adjusted his bosom. "It's very liberating. I might keep it up when filming's finished."

"Really?" Because Charlie was prepared to be supportive, if necessary, but...

"No," David said. "I can't wait to get this bloody contraption off." With that, he headed off to his trailer.

And because he didn't have anything else to do, Charlie followed.

There was a Timmy inside David's trailer. It was sitting on the sofa with a string of drool hanging from its mouth.

"Oh, that's Sugar," David said. "She's the Timmy for the close-ups. She's moved into my trailer."

Charlie eyed the dog warily. It didn't show any indication of intending to leap for his throat so he edged farther into the trailer. "It's a bit of a lard-arse, isn't it?"

" _She_ ," David said. "And she's not a lard-arse. She's pleasantly rounded. Aren't you, Sugar?"

Sugar cheerily waved her tail, used the arm of the sofa to wipe off the string of drool, then started development on replacement slobber.

When Charlie looked back up, David had removed his shirt and wig and was standing by the bed, just wearing jeans and... the contraption. "Will you take my bra off?" David asked. "I can't reach."

"Um," Charlie said.

"I know you can cope with the complicated mechanisms of a bra," David said.

"You do?"

"Well, I assume you can. Even I can when it's on somebody else. It's just when it's on _me_ that it's more difficult."

"Right. Yeah."

David's skin was warm and smooth and distracting. Thankfully, the bra was comically large and off-white and had something squishy in the cups. Charlie poked one of them with his finger. "Honk," he said.

David went a little pink.

"Um," Charlie said, "that is a fake boob, right?"

David went a little pinker. "Yes," he said, and turned his back. "Now, are you going to take this off or will I have to go over to wardrobe?"

"Right," Charlie said, and started work on trying to remove the bra without actually touching David. Because that would be... weird. Weirder than taking off his bra.

Only, apparently, that was physically impossible. So he had to touch David. _Naked_ David. Well, not entirely naked David. But bits of David that weren't normally naked around him and now were.

He cleared his throat. "There's a lot of hooks on this."

"I know," David said, with exaggerated patience. "That's why I can't do it myself."

"Right," Charlie said. "Of course." He cleared his throat again. "It's a bit dark here. There are so many hooks I need to see better." _Away_ from the bed. That was smart. By the sink or something. There was nothing sexy about a sink.

David sighed, turned round - And, and _lunged_ at Charlie.

And not, Charlie realised as he landed on the sofa with David on top of him, the hostile kind of lunging.

The kind of lunging that was the exact _opposite_ of hostile. The kind of lunging that didn't happen to Charlie.

The kind of lunging that involved somebody else's mouth on his throat and their hand on his chest and he'd never claimed to be smart but he'd have to be thicker than Jordan's left tit not to take advantage of this.

Besides, David's bra was a _lot_ easier to undo from this angle. Which meant he could then run his hands over the whole of David's back and-

 _Could_ he touch David's bum? Was that taking it too far?

No. No, it wasn't taking it too far when David had _jumped on top of him_. That was a pretty enthusiastic yes to most things, so Charlie slid his hand down past David's waist.

And David gasped against Charlie's neck, jerked a little, and then David was shoving his hand up under Charlie's t-shirt and _this did not happen to Charlie_.

So he shoved the hand that wasn't on David's arse into David's hair and kissed him, and David kissed him back and what the hell was he meant to do now?

Because was this just kissing or was it kissing _that was going to lead to something more_ and, if the latter, what kind of _something more_ was David expecting? And was it something Charlie could fake experience at?

He'd just decided that bumsex was definitely out (giving or receiving), he was absolutely fine with handjobs (ditto) and that he was fine with receiving a blowjob and would have a bloody good go at giving one, when David let out a little whimper, thrust against him, and suddenly the whole debate was purely academic.

Because rubbing off against each other was perfect and no agonising necessary.

Not when he could just get a firmer grip on David's arse and shove up against him; could listen to the amazing little hitches in David's breathing; could feel the flexing of his arse under Charlie's hand.

He didn't have enough bloody hands, was the only problem. Didn't have a hand for David's warm, smooth back; didn't have a hand to grab his hips and grind hard and rough against him; didn't have a hand for David's shoulders, his arms, his neck. So much of David he couldn't touch.

And so much of him that David wasn't touching. A hand on Charlie's jaw, the other on his chest, and David thrusting against him, rapid and shallow and getting faster until David froze, said, "Oh!" and shivered.

Which was, apparently, all Charlie was waiting for.

He'd barely even reached the afterglow portion of his orgasm when David said, "Oh, shit," and scrambled off Charlie, managing to both elbow him and knee him at the same time. "These jeans are costume and now they're-"

"Shit," Charlie said. "These are my only jeans."

It was, Charlie reflected, a little strange to be struggling out of their clothes _after_ having had sex, but it removed the question of post-coital snuggling and gave them something definite to do that wasn't awkwardly saying, "Um," and trying to avoid looking at each other.

All in all, he rather approved.

Until the inevitable point when they were both standing in damp underwear, holding their jeans and awkwardly saying, "Um," while trying to avoid looking at each other.

"Do you want to rinse them out in the bathroom?" David asked.

"I don't think they're that bad," Charlie said. And possibly he would have liked to rinse out his boxers - oh, god, he was wearing _comedy boxers_ because he hadn't had a lot of clean underwear when he was packing and now David would think the comedy boxers were a deliberate choice - but that would mean sitting around without any underwear waiting for them to dry.

The best plan was to go commando back to his hotel, where he had clean boxers - without Simpsons characters on them - and where he could put his jeans in the laundry and his comedy boxers in the bin and he could pretend that David _had never seen Mr. Burns on his crotch._

The only problem with this plan was that it involved taking his boxers off in front of David.

Which shouldn't have been a problem, considering they'd just had something that was probably best described as sex, but he couldn't quite convince himself of that.

"Right," David said. "Well, I'm just going to..." He nodded to what Charlie assumed was the bathroom but could well have been a cupboard.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure," Charlie said, and David waved before stepping into the cupboard and shutting the door behind him.

Charlie seized the opportunity to drop his boxers, use them to wipe himself down a bit, and pull his jeans back on.

Only he could apparently take his jeans _off_ while still wearing his shoes but he couldn't get them back _on_. And he was half-hopping round the trailer with one foot wedged inside his jeans and his dick wobbling like an oddly-shaped blancmange when David came out of the bathroom.

 _He_ was wearing a fucking dressing gown. A purpleish-reddish paisley dressing gown. Bastard.

"Um," David said. "Do you want a hand?"

And Charlie gave up on dignity, flopped bare-arsed onto the sofa and said, "Yes." He lifted the foot wedged inside his jeans and said, "Pull?"

"I think I already did," David said.

And he _could_ say things like that because he was decently covered, so Charlie said, "You're the one who jumped on top of me."

David suddenly seemed very interested in freeing Charlie's foot from his jeans. "Actually," he said, "in the interests of honesty - I tripped over the dog."

Charlie's foot popped free but it took him a moment to realise and drop it down to the floor.

"But you didn't seem to mind," David said quickly. "And neither did I. So..."

"Right," Charlie said, and looked at the corner where Sugar was happily drooling. "I feel very awkward being naked in front of the dog now."

David handed Charlie his jeans. "You could always get dressed."

"Right." This time, Charlie took his shoes off before trying to put his jeans on. It was a lot more successful, although going commando in jeans was just as uncomfortable as on every other occasion when he'd run out of clean underwear and had to go out to the shops to buy more. "So, I should, er..." He nodded in the direction of the door.

"Right," David said. "Right."

And, with his hand on the door handle, Charlie plucked up every bit of courage from his utterly pathetic and shrivelled soul and said, "So, do you fancy grabbing a drink this evening? Or, you know, something?"

"That sounds good," David said.

It took Charlie the entire cab ride back to his hotel to realise that the strange, slightly uncomfortable thing his mouth was doing was a smile.

* * *

The trouble with going on a not-a-date-really-we're-just-grabbing-a-drink in the hotel where the entire production crew was staying was that it was impossible to keep it to just the two of them without _saying_ it was a not-a-date-really-we're-just-grabbing-a-drink.

And Charlie ended up drinking too much and going back to his room alone, where he had a wank while the room span around him.

* * *

The next day was their last in Dorset and they had far too many scenes to finish up on Kirrin Island, including Aunt Fanny's triumphant arrival with the all-female SWAT team.

In a bizarre fluke, David's scenes were all successful on the first take and then the director and crew were left to wrangle the kids while David (costume replaced with jeans and crumpled polo shirt) and Charlie lost themselves in a deserted corner of the castle - after raiding craft services and helping themselves to a couple of large carrier bags of assorted food.

"Last night," David said, as they settled themselves against an attractively mouldering wall, "was a total wash-out."

"I hadn't planned on Marcus joining us," Charlie said. "And giving us a graphic description of exactly how polar bears are dying."

"It's not my idea of a hot date," David said. "Although it could be argued that a picnic in a ruined castle on a remote island is quite romantic."

"Not if there's a film crew there, too," Charlie said.

"But they're on the opposite _side_ of the island," David said. "The quite large island. And they'd be very unlikely to come over this way when they've got a lot of work to get through and a lot of kids to wrangle."

"You were winning me over," Charlie said, "until you mentioned the kids."

"Am I going to have to fall over the dog again?"

"What?" Charlie said, which he thought was quite intelligent given the circumstances.

And then David lunged.

At which point, even the simplest words became completely beyond his mental abilities, because he was stuck on moaning and whimpering and trying to breathe.

And, okay, it wasn't perfect. The grass was full of pebbles that weren't particularly noticeable through jeans but were distinctly painful against naked skin. The breeze that was refreshing when dressed was straightforward _cold_ once clothing was removed, necessitating a removal to a more sheltered and less picturesque corner.

But an orgasm is an orgasm and, Charlie reflected as he lay back, even as orgasms went, that was a very nice one.

Next to him, David yawned. "What time is it?"

Charlie checked his watch, squinting against the glare of the sun on the glass. "Just gone two."

"Time for a nap."

"Mm," Charlie agreed.

"Will you set the alarm on your mobile?"

"Mm," Charlie said.

"Right," David said, and rolled over to... Well, to _snuggle_ into Charlie's side. And, to be fair, this corner might be sunny and sheltered but they were still in Britain and the bit of added warmth was welcome.

Charlie closed his eyes. Just for a moment, he promised himself. Just a moment, and then he'd set the alarm on his mobile.

The mobile that was still with his jacket, over by the food.

The mobile that he couldn't get to without standing up. Which would disturb David, which was totally unthinkable. It was consideration, not laziness.

Besides, he decided, he'd wake up in plenty of time.

* * *

It wasn't dark when Charlie woke up but the shadows had stretched significantly past where they'd been when he dozed off. Dreading what he'd see, he looked at his watch.

Half past eight.

"Shit!" he yelped, and sat upright. David fell off his shoulder and let out an even higher-pitched yelp.

"What?" he demanded, looking round frantically.

Even in the midst of his panic, Charlie couldn't help noticing that David's hair was sticking up in a frankly adorable manner. Wordlessly, he held his wrist out so David could see his watch.

David blinked, frowned, then said, "Shit!" and scrambled to his feet. "Clothes!" he said.

Their clothes were still where they'd left them but had somehow become damp, despite the bone-dry ground. They were also infested with insects. Charlie deliberately didn't think about the possibility of spiders as he shook his t-shirt out.

They dressed in a scrambled rush, not bothering with unnecessary fripperies like socks or fastening belts, and pelted across the island to where, the last they looked, had been a bustling film set.

Now, there was just crushed grass, the occasional page of paper, and an expanse of sand, swept flat by the outgoing tide.

"Fuck," Charlie said.

David echoed the sentiment but with a larger vocabulary.

"We're going to have to phone somebody," Charlie said, staring dismally at the distant shore.

"They're going to take the piss," David agreed. He joined Charlie in staring at the distant shore. "Do you think we could swim?"

"No," Charlie said. "Not a fucking chance."

"I didn't think so," David said. He sighed and rummaged in his pocket for his phone, pressed a few buttons, and said, "Crap. I haven't got a signal."

"Okay," Charlie said, and got out his own phone. Which had kindly taken a couple of photos of the inside of his pocket, in case he was especially interested in that kind of thing, and started playing something from the shame-filled depths of his music collection. Unfortunately, while it made a wonderful camera and mp3 player, the lack of signal meant it was completely useless as a mobile phone. "Shit," he said, and showed the screen to David.

"Oh, well, that's just fucking fantastic," David said, and sat down on the sand. "We're going to be castaways within sight of the mainland."

"They'll notice we're not there," Charlie said.

David didn't say anything.

"Won't they?" Charlie said after a moment.

"Are you normally very sociable?" David asked. "Because I'm not. I've spent most evenings in my room."

"Shit," Charlie said, and sat down next to David. "We're fucked, aren't we?"

He had a nightmarish vision of spending the rest of their lives on this island, living off what they could scavenge from the island. There was an apple in the bag of food – perhaps they could grow an apple tree? But he thought trees usually took quite a few years to get to the point where you could eat stuff off them, and they'd probably be dead by then.

Maybe they could catch fish and cook them over an open fire.

"Do you know how to start a fire?" he asked.

David's thoughts seemed to have been heading in the same direction. "I was hoping you did."

"Nope," Charlie said. "How are you at catching fish?"

Perhaps their thoughts hadn't been heading in the same direction because David looked confused at that. "I haven't considered fish in the slightest."

"Oh," Charlie said, and then, as enlightenment dawned, "Oh! You were talking about a signal fire."

"Why else would I want a fire?" David asked.

"To cook fish on," Charlie said.

David stared at him. "I think you might have caught the sun," he said.

"I'm _panicking_ , okay? I'm not mentally equipped for the Devon version of _I'm a Celebrity_. I have no survival skills and I refuse point-blank to eat a kangaroo's arsehole."

"I don't think that's going to be much of handicap, given Devon isn't known for its population of wild marsupials!"

“Well, that’s not going to be a handicap considering we’re in bloody Dorset!”

“You said Devon,” David said.

“Like I said, _panicking!_ And you’re meant to be the smart one who can remember stupid things like what county we’re in.” They glared at each other, then Charlie said, "This is all your fault. If you hadn't seduced me, we'd never have fallen asleep."

"If you hadn't slept through the alarm-" David stopped. "Your phone was in your jacket. You never set the bloody alarm!"

"That's beside the point," Charlie said, quickly.

"No, it's not! That _right on top of_ the pointiest bit of the point! It's all your fault that we're going to end up starving to death!"

Charlie tried to distract him with the vague possibility of hope. "Your flatmate's expecting you back tomorrow, isn't he? So when you don't show up, he'll call people and they'll realise we're here and they'll come and rescue us."

David _looked_ at him. "My flatmate's perfectly used to filming over-running. And that's if he even knows I'm due back tomorrow."

"Fuck," Charlie said, and resumed staring out at the sea between them and a hotel with comfortable beds and room service and a mini-bar.

They stayed like that for about five minutes, and then David said, in a forcedly positive voice, "Right!" and stood up.

Charlie looked up at him. "What?"

"I don't know about you but I read lots of Enid Blyton books as a child and they were always getting stuck on islands. Sometimes with German submarine bases."

"Really?" Charlie asked. "I wonder if I could get al-Quaeda into the next series of the show."

"No, you couldn't," David said. "And even if you could, you shouldn't. But, to get back to the point, when they got stuck on islands, they had signal fires and banners ready to wave."

"We've already established that neither of us can start a fire," Charlie said. "I knew I shouldn't have stopped smoking."

"But we can wave something when we see somebody go past. And we can spell out SOS or HELP or something on the beach, in case anybody flies over."

Charlie thought about it and reluctantly conceded that David did have a point. "Okay," he said. "And we can wave our shirts."

"You can wave your shirt," David said. "I'm not taking my clothes off in public."

"It's not public," Charlie said. "We're the only ones here."

"But we're hoping it'll be sufficiently public for somebody to spot our waving shirts and rescue us," David said, "so you're the one stripping off, because it's entirely your fault that we're stranded."

Charlie couldn't really argue that. "Can I leave my shirt on until we see a potential rescuer?"

"I suppose so," David said begrudgingly.

* * *

Three hours later, they were still sitting on the deserted beach, watching the tide creeping ever closer and staring longingly at the lights of the town.

"In my minibar," Charlie said dreamily, "there were Pringles."

"I left a Mars bar on my bedside table," David said. "One of those big ones with two bars in it."

Charlie sighed. "Do you think you could swim for it?"

David looked at him. "What do you mean, _I_ could swim for it?"

"Well, I can't," Charlie said. "I sink as soon as my feet come off the bottom."

"No, I can't swim for it," David said. "I don't know if it's slipped your notice but I'm not at the peak of physical fitness."

Charlie sighed again. "I don't think anybody's going to come tonight," he said.

"We should go back to the castle," David said after a moment. "It'll probably be warmer there."

"Maybe we can find a bit with a roof," Charlie said. "In case it rains. But then there's the possibility of the roof collapsing on us."

"If the castle's stood for a thousand years," David said, "I don't think it's going to decide to topple over tonight."

"It might," Charlie said glumly. "The way everything else has gone today."

They found a dry corner underneath a flight of stairs that no longer went anywhere. It was small enough that they had to sit close together. As the night got colder, they got closer, until Charlie had his arm around David’s shoulder and legs over David’s lap.

“I’d just like to make it clear,” David said, “that I’m still very annoyed with you for not setting your alarm. This snuggling is purely for warmth.”

“Noted,” Charlie said, and buried his face into David’s neck. “Have we actually slept at all?”

“No,” David said, “because it’s too bloody cold and you won’t shut up for long enough.”

Charlie managed to stay quiet for what felt like half an hour. “Your ear’s like a block of ice.”

“Shut _up _. I want to _sleep_ , you inconsiderate bastard.” But after a moment, he said, “What time is it?”__

“I’d have to move to find out, and that would involve my few warm bits getting cold.”

“It’s just that I think it might be dawn. Either that or I’m hallucinating.”

Charlie looked up at that, and David shivered at the sudden blast of cold air to his neck. “I think you’re right. But it doesn’t actually get us any closer to figuring out a way off this island.”

“Maybe not, but at least it should be a bit warmer.”

“No more snuggling for warmth,” Charlie said thoughtfully.

David cleared his throat. “I’ll probably forgive you when we’re actually off the island,” he said. “And we can maybe snuggle for other reasons.”

“I think I’d prefer snuggling for other reasons,” Charlie said, and settled his head back against David’s neck.

Eventually, the sun was high enough that they unfolded themselves from their corner, stretched aching, cramped limbs and faced the world with bleary eyes and slumped spines.

The first stop was the beach, which was exactly as empty as it had been last time they were there.

“I suppose it was too much to hope they might have noticed we were missing already,” Charlie said, and kicked at the sand. The sand, of course, went straight into his shoe.

“Well, I’m not normally out of my room this early and I very much doubt you are. And I don’t think the island is the first place they’d look, even if we were.”

Charlie grunted.

They stared out at the sea for a while longer, then David said, “I have never been this hungry in my life. I’m starting to contemplate eating my own foot.”

Charlie looked at his feet, safely ensconced in their shoes. “I think I’d want to scrub mine a bit before eating them.”

“And I’ve got a callous on my big toe that wouldn’t be very tasty.”

“How about we leave the foot-eating for later?” Charlie said.

David nodded. “No eating feet until this evening.”

“Excuse me,” a voice said from behind them, “but - are you David Mitchell?”

Charlie whipped round and found himself looking at a young woman accompanied by two toddlers. “How the hell did you get here?” he demanded, before David elbowed him in the ribs.

“Yes,” David said. “Could we borrow your boat? Please?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I don’t have a boat.”

“How about a sandwich?” Charlie asked, and got elbowed again.

“Is somebody coming back to pick you up, then? Could we have a lift? We’re a bit stuck.”

The woman looked confused. “Can you not just get the bus?”

“Bus?” Charlie asked.

“ _Bus?_ ” David echoed.

“It goes from the other side of the castle.” She pointed behind her. “You’ve just missed this one but there’s another due in half an hour or so.”

“There’s a bus from an island? A water-bus?”

The woman looked even more confused. “It’s not an island.”

“It’s not an island,” Charlie told David.

“It’s not an island,” David told Charlie.

“No,” the woman said, glancing between the two of them, and stepping protectively in front of the two toddlers. “It’s not an island.”

David took a deep breath. “Excuse me,” he said. “We’re just going to go and catch the bus.”

“Before you go,” the woman said, “could I have your autograph?”

Charlie checked his pockets. “You can have his autograph,” he said, “if you’ll lend us enough money for the bus.”

* * *

The bus journey took them through disgustingly picturesque countryside. Charlie wasn’t paying a great deal of attention. “Do you think they’ll still be doing breakfast when we get back to the hotel?” he asked.

“God, I hope so,” David said. “Eggs. Bacon. Sausages.”

“Fried bread,” Charlie joined in. “Eggy bread.”

“Grapefruit.”

“Grapefruit?”

“I don’t know why,” David said. “I’m just really craving grapefruit.”

“And then a hot shower,” Charlie said.

“A _bath_ ,” David said.

“With bubbles.”

“At least the hotel version of bubbles.”

Charlie sighed blissfully at the thought. “Followed by a _bed_. An actual bed. With clean sheets. And maybe still a chocolate on the pillow.”

“That Mars bar I left by my bed,” David said.

“Do you think,” Charlie said, “we could tell the driver there’s a bomb on the bus and he can’t go below fifty miles an hour?”

But when they finally staggered down the street to the hotel, they were confronted by the director. “Where the _fuck_ have you been, David?” he demanded. “We need to reshoot the sheep scene, and we’ve only got the rest of today to do it. And the light’ll be wrong in-” he glanced at his watch “- oh, fuck, five hours. _Move!_ ”

And David was dragged away, into the clutches of costume and make-up, before he could do more than wail, “My Mars bar!”

Charlie contemplated following David but then he caught the smell of breakfast, and decided that David could look after himself.

Breakfast was followed by the promised bath and bed, and when Charlie finally woke up, there was a text on his phone telling him that David had been kidnapped and taken back to London while he was having a nap in the back of a Range Rover. “And I’m never going back to Devon ever again, so I’ll see you in London.”

It was kind of adorable, Charlie thought, that even David’s texts were properly punctuated and capitalised. He yawned, replied saying, “Dorset,” and decided he might as well head back to London himself.

* * *

Charlie opened his front door.

“It was Devon,” David said. “Can I come in?”

Charlie scratched his chin and stepped aside. “Are you sure it was Devon?” he asked, as David came in.

David extracted something from the carrier bag in his hand and shook it at Charlie. “Devon fudge,” he said.

“You can get Devon fudge in Oxford,” Charlie said. “Doesn’t mean Oxford’s suddenly moved to the south coast.”

“No, you can’t,” he said.

“You _can_ ,” Charlie said. “Go into any of the tourist traps on High Street.”

“Well, yes,” David conceded. “In the _tourist_ shops.” He managed to make it completely obvious that tourist shops weren’t real shops.

“And where did you get that?” Charlie demanded. “Bet it was a twee little place selling bloody buckets and spades.”

“They’d have been selling Dorset fudge if it was Dorset,” David said.

“No, they wouldn’t,” Charlie said. “Nobody sells bloody Dorset fudge.”

“Google it,” David said.

“Okay!” Charlie unearthed his laptop from under a pile of dirty dishes and waited for it to come back to life. Fingers finally poised over the keyboard, he said, “What was the name of the town?”

“ _I_ don’t know!” David said. “I went in a car. You’re the one who got the train. Haven’t you still got the ticket somewhere?”

But, despite going through all possible pockets (and finding tickets for a journey to Reading taken five years ago), the tickets for Dorset (or possibly Devon) had vanished.

“I bet the internet knows where we were filming,” David said, but although the internet came up with an exhaustive list of filming locations for previous versions of the Famous Five, it was completely uninterested in the latest incarnation.

“That’s not a good sign,” Charlie said. “Nobody’s going to watch it, and it’ll be cancelled after one episode.”

“As long as I get paid,” David said.

Charlie cheered up a little at that.

“Anyway,” David said, “seeing as we can’t figure out where we were stranded on a desert peninsula - do you fancy, er...?” He nodded his head towards the stairs.

Charlie stood up so quickly that he actually managed to fall over his own feet, but he recovered in time and made it to his bed without killing himself.

Which was, he decided an hour or so later, a very good thing indeed.

* * *

Charlie was pissed off. In all fairness, he thought, he had good reason, because he’d just spent the entire morning watching his boyfriend snogging another man, and now he was going the spend the afternoon watching them in bed together.

He chewed savagely on the end of his pen and glowered at Marcus. Marcus didn’t take any notice, because he was too busy flirting with Charlie’s boyfriend. Okay, a slightly more objective viewer might think that Marcus was just _teasing_ David by patting his bum and fondling his fake boobs. A completely objective viewer might think that Marcus was driving David up the wall.

But Charlie wasn’t objective and couldn’t be objective and didn’t even _want_ to be objective, so the hypothetical objective viewer could go and watch some tall, posh git fondling _his_ boyfriend and see how objective he felt then.

Objective bastard.

“What’s got your knickers in a twist?” Evangeline demanded, thudding into the chair next to Charlie’s.

“Are you even allowed to be here?” Charlie asked. “There’s going to be nudity and sex and stuff, and you’re a kid.”

Evangeline looked at him like he had the intelligence and moral rectitude of Piers Morgan. “Have you ever actually read the script you wrote?”

“Not recently,” Charlie admitted.

“This is the scene where George and Anne burst in on Fanny and Quentin fucking.”

Charlie shot upright. He’d written _that?_ He’d given Marcus even more of a chance to get his filthy, annoying, better-looking-than-Charlie paws all over David? “I’m sure I’d remember writing that,” he said, desperately flicking through his copy of the script.

“Well, snogging. But they’re in bed, so it’s pretty obvious.”

“Oh.” Charlie relaxed in relief.

“So,” Evangeline said, “how long have you and David been fucking?”

The noise Charlie produced was, he was horribly certain, an actual _squawk_ , and it was loud enough for most of the crew to turn and look at him. “Dropped a- a thing. On my foot. Sorry!” he called.

Evangeline was sniggering.

“How did you know?” Charlie hissed at her. “We’re- It’s- We’re not telling anybody yet.”

“I went wandering round the castle, the last day on location.”

“Shit.” Charlie buried his face in his hands. “Shit, shit, shit. Is that corrupting a minor? Am I going to get arrested?”

Evangeline patted his thigh reassuringly. “It’s okay, I won’t tell anybody. But why the secrecy, anyway? I think you’re an adorable couple.”

Charlie took his hands away from his face for long enough to wave them around vaguely, as he said, “David’s _famous_. There’d be newspapers. And I’ve never bothered telling my mum I’m a bit queer. And I’ve got no idea if David has. We’d be a _celebrity gay couple_.”

Evangeline shuddered. “Elton John and David Furnish for cynics.”

“Exactly,” Charlie said, then paused. “Which of us is which?”

“It wasn’t a direct comparison,” Evangeline said. She was watching Marcus pat David’s organic-hemp-clad bum again. “But if I was you, I’d punch Marcus about now.”

“If there’s another series,” Charlie said, “I’m going to write him falling into a septic tank. And _swallowing_ it.”

“Oooh,” Evangeline said, eyeing him with respect. “You’re _evil_.”

He chewed his pen for a moment. “Where _was_ the location filming, by the way?” he finally asked.

“Kent,” Evangeline said.

* * *

Charlie and David ate lunch in David’s dressing room, accompanied by Sugar the border collie.

“Kent?” David said. “I don’t think it was Kent. It didn’t feel like Kent.”

“What does Kent feel like?”

“Like neither Dorset nor Devon.”

Charlie poked at his spaghetti bolognaise. He had a suspicion it was sentient. “Perhaps she meant Cornwall?” he offered.

“It could have been Cornwall,” David agreed.

Charlie offered his bolognaise to Sugar, who sniffed it cautiously, then gave him a look that stated clearly that she may consider cow shit a tasty treat but she wasn’t even _touching_ that.

“I’ll ask Marcus,” David continued.

“If you can distract him from your tits for long enough,” Charlie muttered.

“They aren’t my tits,” David said. “They’re wardrobe’s tits. And you’re the one who wrote it.”

“I didn’t know I was writing it for you and him, though,” Charlie said. “And you weren’t- We weren’t- We hadn’t shagged when I wrote it.”

“Well, it’s too late to change it now,” David said, and looked like he was about to say more but was interrupted by a knock at the door and the news he was needed on set.

Charlie trailed after him. After casting a final suspicious glance at Charlie’s abandoned spag bol, Sugar followed.

* * *

Two hours later, Charlie’s fists were clenched around the arms of his chair and he was tapping his foot on the floor. And Marcus was lying in bed next to David, topless, with one hand resting on David’s right tit.

“Is this what Jordan’s boobs are made out of?” Marcus was asking, as he gave it an experimental squeeze. “God, it doesn’t feel anything like a real one.”

“I think I’ve forgotten what a real one feels like,” David said.

Marcus gave David’s tit a sympathetic pat. “I tell you what,” he said. “My wife’s got a lovely friend who-”

“No!” Charlie roared, startling even himself. “You will _not_ set him up with some lovely fucking friend of your wife’s! GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY- Um.”

In the ensuing silence, Charlie heard David sigh.

“Oh, fuck,” Charlie said.

* * *

A week later, Charlie was sitting up in bed, reading the Daily Mail website. “Apparently,” he said, “Chloe was entirely responsible for us getting together. She sat you down and explained that any worthwhile human being - like her - really wouldn’t mind you being a homosexual. And if you were genuinely in love with me, no matter how strange I am, you should go for it and never mind the inevitable damage to your career.”

“Hmm,” David said, without looking up from his copy of Kynaston’s _Austerity Britain_.

“Ivan said, and I quote, ‘Oh, are they gay? Huh’. And Evangeline tried to distract the reporter with tales of underage orgies involving her, Jeff Prendergast, and two of the Timmies.”

“Hmm,” David said again.

“Oh!” Charlie nudged him. “We got together while filming on location in Somerset.”

“Charlie?” David said.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

And, smiling, Charlie did.


End file.
